Six unreleased Hadjidakis songs reach listeners for the first time on Paides epi Kolono, a work Manos Hadjidakis wrote in 1977–1978 but never finished.
Giorgos Hadjidakis edited the new album, which came out on Friday 23 October, the composer’s birthday. It holds 13 songs in total.
Alkinoos Ioannidis sings the six unreleased Hadjidakis songs in the composer’s original orchestrations, recorded for the first time. The Athens Chamber Choir sings with him.
Record label Panik Oxygen issued the unreleased Hadjidakis songs on digital platforms and on vinyl. More details on the composer’s archive appear on the composer’s official website.
Hadjidakis wrote both music and lyrics for Ena Fantasma ti Nychta (A Ghost in the Night). It opens with the lines “It is a demon and it runs through the wilderness”.
Why the stage cantata stalled
“It is a stage cantata, which was due to be staged as an audiovisual event in Kolonos,” Ioannidis said.
However, the mayor of the time “in the end avoided it, perhaps because he considered it particularly daring”, he said. As a result, the composer left the work, almost finished, in a drawer, where the unreleased Hadjidakis songs stayed until now.
Besides Hadjidakis, lyricists Nikos Gatsos, Agathi Dimitrouka, Manos Eleftheriou and Michalis Bourboulis wrote the words.
In the score, the composer calls the piece “a study in the mangas style of the ’30s”. His note of 4 and 5 March 1978 adds that “Oi Paides epi Kolono compose Greek images of love, squalor and despair”.
Before this album, Hadjidakis had recorded Megalos Erotikos (1972) and Paraloga (1976). Later came Epochi tis Melissanthis (1980).
A tribute to popular culture
Ioannidis described the songs as “a tribute by Hadjidakis to our popular culture”. In his view, the composer “passes it through his own filter, transforming it into something new”, and does not seek popular hits.
He also recalled the lecture on rebetiko that Hadjidakis gave at the Theatro Technis on 31 January 1949. Until then the Left had banned the genre while the bourgeoisie hunted it, Ioannidis said.
At that time the gendarmerie barred Markos Vamvakaris from leaving Piraeus, so Hadjidakis secured a special permit to bring him to the theatre. When the lecture ended, Vamvakaris took his bouzouki, went on stage and said “Hello, lads”.
Across the 13 songs, references run from Oedipus to Vassilis Tsitsanis. Its lyrics capture the ordinary people of the Kolonos neighbourhood.
Other unreleased Hadjidakis songs include Paides, oi en ti Asfalto, Epeidi Imastan Polloi and Oloi oi Angeloi t’Ouranou. The choral Metavasi and Sto Stavro, sto Soma Ekeino join them.
Earlier recordings such as Vrechei sto Sideradiko and Ta Vradia tis Sarakostis close the album.
Panik Oxygen expects to follow the unreleased Hadjidakis songs with another unreleased work, Koinos Vios, towards the end of the year.
Source: Kathimerini
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